Team Ruiz Reacts to James Toney Steroid Scandal

LAS VEGAS (June 2, 2005) – Team Ruiz expressed satisfaction that the World Boxing Association has entered an order (dated May 16 2005) stripping James Toney and reinstating John Ruiz as the WBA heavyweight champion, based on Toney’s violation of New York State Athletic Commission’s illegal substance policy.

Team Ruiz believes the sanction banning Toney from competing for the WBA heavyweight title for two years isn’t, however, strict enough. The NYSAC meted out what, under its current guidelines, is the maximum punishment for a first offense: three months suspension and $10,000 fine. Toney and his team have since scoffed at the WBA title, making the remarkable claim that he beat John “fair and square,” despite testing positive for using an illegal performance-enhancing substance.

Experts have told us that Nandrolone, the steroid Toney tested positive for, is the “Cadillac” of anabolic androgenic steroids. It is one of the most powerful performance-enhancing substances, providing the best results and least side effects. They’ve also said that Toney’s illegal drug guru must have screwed up because Nandrolone, due to its chemical structure, is more easily detected than many other steroids. Toney is either an idiot or he simply decided to take a risk and not worry about the consequences. It’s probably both based on his “I didn’t do anything wrong” excuse regarding an alleged mixture of orally-ingested prescription medicines magically turning into an anabolic androgenic steroid. Nonsense! This is a matter of medical science, not alchemy.

Any true expert in the field of sports anti-doping knows that the use of Nandrolone had the potential to dramatically boosted Toney’s ability to train and compete, artificially adding to his strength, speed and power; more importantly, though, it supercharged his ability to recover from strenuous effort. Unlike in baseball or track-and-field, the use of this illegal substance, given the nature of competition and risks in championship level boxing, is much worse than just cheating. In fact, it’s criminal.

Team Ruiz has embarked on a mission to change drug-testing protocol in championship boxing. Rather than test immediately before and after the contest (geared only to determine if stimulants were used), testing for the use of anabolic

Androgenic steroids and other banned performance enhancing substances should be done randomly, anytime between the announcement of a fight right up until the day of the event. We believe that this method is the only way to prevent the use of illegal substances.

Now that the Toneys of the world know that Nandrolone cannot be used because it can’t be purged in sufficient time (especially in the case of Ruiz-Toney where training was shortened to five weeks), they will simply use one of the many other anabolic steroids that can be masked or eliminated right before the fight. In boxing, where an artificial and illegal imbalance of fair competition may mean not only the difference in several millions of dollars in future purses but, more significantly, in a competitor’s life or death, the system must be changed now.